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Happy Sunday! Welcome to all the newest subscribers from around the world!

ICYMI: Last week, we highlighted on our End of Summer Coaches Roundtable with Drew Dunlop focusing on the Ready Up, and ways to maximize the first 10–15 minutes of practice to prepare players. Read the Newsletter HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: 3 Flat Nail Screen - Creating Coverage Confusion​

🧪 The Practice Lab: Move with the Drive

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Ross Hodge​

📣 NABC Convention: Register Now!​

🥇 Best of the Week: Stealing an Easy Two​

The Nail Screen

Simplicity on offense can bring predictability, but knowing what’s coming doesn’t always mean the defense knows how to guard it.

That’s what we’re looking at today with the 3 Flat Nail Screen, a simple action whose spacing leaves the defense uncertain about how to apply a coverage while giving the ballhandler clear options to attack.

Whether you want to feature a downhill ballhandler, use a pick and pop big, or attack a matchup, it’s easy to incorporate as a main set or a way to trigger another action and get the defense moving.

Let’s dive in.

Creating Coverage Confusion

The building blocks of this action are three players spaced across the baseline, filling both corners and a dunker spot, with our “screener” positioned at the nail.

We’ll call this player the “screener” throughout today’s article, though you’ll quickly see there often isn’t any contact. You might call it a ghost, but even then, this player isn’t running into the action as if they’re going to set a screen. They’re simply existing around the nail, and that’s enough to set up the action.

The screener stays flat at the nail, giving the ballhandler the option to attack in either direction.

This is where the coverage confusion begins:

Zooming In: Similar to a Ghost screen, the screen aims to create just enough uncertainty or "grey areas" as this week's podcast guest Ross Hodge might call it, to get the ball defender to open their hips, but with far less movement. Whether by inching to one side or simply waiting until their defender feels compelled to call something out, the goal is to prompt an adjustment the ballhandler can attack.

There’s some gamesmanship in hanging around the nail and creating that confusion. The positioning also leaves the screener’s defender unsure how to apply a coverage. Do you call a screen? If so, which direction?

Inside the Full Breakdown

That uncertainty is only the starting point. In this week’s SG+ newsletter and video, we examine:

• No Steer: Why the stationary screener makes it difficult for the defense to dictate the screening angle.
• Tough Corral: What makes backing off and getting underneath this action more complicated than it looks.
• Targeting Matchups: How the pop threat complicates support and switching, and how to involve a defender you want to attack.
• Dunker Spot Options: How the player along the baseline can help turn the downhill advantage into a finish.

​Join SG+ to read the complete teaching breakdown and watch the full video on SGTV.

Move With the Drive. Stay Available to the Ball.

Thoughts from Drew Dunlop in building The Practice Lab

This week, I’ve been tinkering with how we help players stay available to the ball while playing in space. The challenge goes beyond moving to a spot. Can they adjust to the ball, their teammates, and the defenders in real time, all while those relationships keep changing?

Brick

I started with a coach holding the ball and players matched up in a neutral 3v3 start. The coach passed to an offensive player, who had to drive for two dribbles before passing. The other offensive players had to move and coordinate to become available. We changed their starting locations each repetition to keep presenting new problems.

Eventually, we changed the trigger: the coach became the driver, starting from a new spot each rep. Offense and defense still began matched up in space, but as the coach drove, both sides could shift to improve their positioning relative to the ball.

Both the starting positions, and how players adjusted became part of the problem to solve.

Takeaway

Being available is temporary. A passing window can open, close, or move as the drive develops.

This connected with two ideas I keep coming back to: Zach Guthrie’s emphasis on great offense involving multiple defenders and making them make multiple decisions, and Tom Crean’s emphasis on the value of the weakside and that games are won against help defenders.

The drive sets things in motion. What happens around it influences whether the defense can help and recover comfortably or has to keep making difficult choices.

The offense had to coordinate its movement, avoid occupying the same space, and stay connected to the ball. The defense had to coordinate help and coverage while tracking those adjustments.

One player’s movement changed the problem for everyone else.

Tinker

We alternated the movement rules each game.

In some games, we specified how offensive players had to move in the direction of the drive. In others, we left it open for them to determine their best options in real time.

I’m interested in what carries over between the two. Does specifying the movement help players recognize useful relationships? When we open it back up, can they adapt to what the possession needs?

That’s what I’ll keep watching: how players coordinate to create passing windows, occupy help defenders, and stay available as the picture changes.

Together with Hudl

The Best Staffs Are Built on This

Night one starts with the work before tip-off. Breaking down film. Building the scout. Deciding what your players need to see.

Hudl brings Sportscode, FastModel, and InStat together to help your staff connect video, strategy, and scouting. Assistants, analysts, and head coaches working from the same information, with a clear plan to bring to the floor.

Prepare for your opener with Hudl.

Learn more at hudl.com/slappinglass​

Subscribers to Slappin' Glass can also directly email Winston Jones of Hudl at winston.jones@hudl.com.

Slappin' Glass Podcast

🎙 Ross Hodge on Defensive Adaptability, Solving Offensive Problems, and Attacking Zones | West Virginia

West Virginia Head Coach, Ross Hodge, joins us on the show this week to explore an number of interesting topics on both sides of the ball. Here are 7 lessons from the episode:

7 Lessons from Ross Hodge:

1. Defensive clarity has to develop into defensive judgment. Rules provide a starting point, but offenses will create situations that fall between coverages and responsibilities. Hodge puts players in scrambles and unfamiliar positions so they learn to solve those possessions together.
2. Let personnel shape how you recover. Switching, peeling, and protecting the rim should reflect what your players can execute. Hodge describes elite defenses with different strengths: one could eliminate opportunities at the rim, while another could take away threes. The principles stayed consistent; the solutions changed.
3. Recognize when your coverage is creating the advantage. Against certain five out and Princeton alignments, forcing baseline can expose a defense without help behind it. Hodge will square the ball or change the direction of a coverage when the opponent’s spacing makes his usual approach vulnerable.
4. Improve finishing by examining the shots you attempt. Before adding another difficult finish, ask whether the player should be taking that shot. For guards, better decisions and playing off two can eliminate unnecessary attempts. For bigs, a stable base and patient dunker spacing create cleaner opportunities before the finishing package comes into play.
5. Teach passing before the player gets trapped. A bad pass can begin with the decision that preceded it: attacking the wrong gap, driving too deep, or passing up an available shot. Help secondary players recognize those situations early so they don’t need an exceptional pass to escape them.
6. Screen a zone to create the next opening. Hodge values step up screens and weak side screens for the slips, pockets, and driving lanes they create. The screener becoming available near the foul line can be as valuable as the initial screening action.
7. Your defense shapes your offense’s habits. Practicing exclusively against no middle can condition players to miss available middle drives in games. Hodge introduces other man coverages early and returns to them weekly, then layers in presses and zones as the season approaches.

Listen to the full conversation here...

Together with NABC

Your next coaching adjustment could start in Detroit.

A new action. A different approach to leadership. A conversation that changes how you teach the game.

Join coaches from every level at the 2027 NABC Convention, April 1st–5th in Detroit, for five days of X&O clinics, educational sessions and opportunities to connect with peers, all alongside college basketball’s championship stage.

Come with questions. Leave with ideas for your team.

​Explore the convention and register →.

Tactical

📺 Spanoulis Action - RIP Screen​

"Punishing the big’s overhelp on the rim screen with a RIP screen."

🔒 Pair With: Inverting the cross screen in the Argentina Break to twirl cross screen the big back to the rim.

🔒 Pair With: Loading the elbow and forcing the defense to guard the cross screen 2v2 in space.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on the Argentina Break and its many variations.

Interesting Reads

📚 The Power of Being the Best​

We give people at the top of a category disproportionately more rewards than those who are slightly below them. In academia, there exist obvious examples of this idea.
​

📚 Lessons from Gregg Popovich ​

"...On prioritizing the collective: His character screen asks whether a player has gotten over himself enough to put the group and teammates ahead of individual status."

📚 The NBA’s Missing State​

Vermont is the only state that has never produced an NBA player, but its basketball culture is alive and … well, it’s alive

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, Eric, and Drew

info@slappinglass.com